The run-up to war with Iran

Not so long ago, the liars, falsifiers, and phonies that inhabit the Bush administration, the corridors of the CIA, and other intelligence agencies, told us with grave faces and somber voices that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and that Iraq was poised to use them, perhaps even attack the US or A.

None of that was true!

Later we were told other lies to jack up the American people's thirst for war to match Mr. Bush's thirst for war. Many folks swallowed them whole, including almost every single Congressperson, which led Mr. Bush to roar and beat his chest and order thousands of young men and women off on a mission to destroy and maim and kill, and in turn be destroyed, maimed and killed.

Maybe this was cathartic for Mr. Bush; maybe it assuaged his guilt, because we all know he did a cowardly disappearing act when it was his time to participate in a previous American adventure of destruction, maiming and killing.


Now, says the Washington Post, the Pentagon (that monstrous gobbler of taxpayer monies and human lives) is in process of devising plans to "potentially" attack Iran.

Watch the woodwork, 'cause the doomsayers and the snakeoil salesmen are coming out of their holes. And they're crying (again) about how Iran is messing around in Iraq causing trouble for the Iraqi government and the U.S. occupation.

Even the esteemed Admiral Mike Mullen, chair of the Joint Chiefs, is selling. He warns about Iran's "increasingly lethal and malign influence" in Iraq. He also said that, while war with Iran would be "extremely stressing" for the U.S. military, it would not be impossible.

Mullen thinks the necessary military resources (read bodies to be killed) to relieve this stress can be located in the U.S. Navy and Air Force reserves. That can't be true, or we wouldn't be in so much trouble now. In fact, we're in so much trouble we've opened the door of our Armed Services to a variety of felons, and we're signing them up, giving them guns, and training them to kill!

Furthermore, you can bet your booty that Mullen and the other aging men and women "warriors" in charge of military things, have in mind all those young lads and lasses now 17 or 18 years of age, your sons and your daughters, in fact, just itching to get their hands on them and send them off to die for Bush and company.

"It would be a mistake," said Mullen, "to think that we are out of combat capability."

It would? Haven't we been hearing for some time that we've about exhausted our military resources and that's why some of our military folks must do two or even three tours in Iraq? If we're not just about exhausted, what's that about? And why else are we recruiting the above-named felons?

Mullen isn't the only saber-rattler. Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense, got into the act, too, claiming that Iran is providing "weapons, training and financing to Iraqi groups that are attacking and killing Americans."

Not only so, but according to Mr. Gates, Iran is "hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons." Now that is scary and the reason he said it was to scare us, so when Bush gives the "go" to the bombers, we'll all clap and cheer. Gates did opine that war [with Iran] would not be pretty, but he continued to insist we must consider the nuclear option as a viable option. He did not speak specifically as to why a nuclear strike might be necessary. A nuclear strike, for god's sake!

And now the soon-to-be top dog of all U.S. forces in the Middle East, Army General David Petraeus, is said to be planning a briefing which will detail how we have discovered Iranian weapons in Iraq.

Aha! Probably just like those WMD in Iraq!


Well, the shooting is already underway; sort of. Last week an American cargo ship, known as either the Westward Venture or the Western Venture, claimed it was in international waters when Iranian speedboats came close and didn't respond to radio calls. The American ship fired. Iran says it never happened.

And you will recall how we were told last January that an American warship in the Strait of Hormuz was approached by five Iranian patrol boats which, as they neared, dropped small, boxlike objects in the water. Bush called this a "provocative act."

It turned out to be a complete fabrication! More bullshit from the Bushshites!


Isn't it interesting, too, that a top military officer (Mullen) is making foreign policy announcements? That is what the president is supposed to do! Are we supposed to think that this is not all Bush's doing, but even the best and the brightest of the military lights see things through his war-like eyes?

The other fly in the ointment has to do with the Christian Right's influence on Bush and his administration. It wasn't long ago that John Hagee bragged about his weekly calls to the White House. But it's not just Hagee. There are a number of other, very powerful and influential wingnuts out there who are looking forward to an end-times event that will destroy the world, as insane as that may seem.

These truly crazy people believe in a scenario involving a nuclear conflict with Iran which they think will fulfill biblical prophecy and usher in the final days -- Jesus' return, the Rapture and Armageddon! Certainly such belief is evidence of madness! To act on such a belief is beyond madness!

Somewhat frightening, is the knowledge that where you find Hagee you find John McCain, who is "proud" to have Hagee's support in his try for the White House.

In an article titled, "Warrior envy, mass psychosis and McCain," Paul Campos quoted a McCain statement from 2002:

"Theodore Roosevelt is one of my greatest political heores. The 'strenuous life' was T.R.'s definition of Americanism, a celebration of America's pioneer ethos, the virtues that had won the West and inspired our belief in ourselves as the New Jerusalem, bound by sacred duty to suffer hardship and risk danger to protect the values of our civilization and impart them to humanity. 'We cannot sit huddled within our borders,' he warned, 'and avow ourselves merely an assemblage of well-to-do hucksters who care nothing for what happens beyond.'"

"Those are the words," says Mr. Campos, "of a man who sees war as a noble enterprise: one which builds our collective character, protects us from the moral dangers of an easy life, and gives us a chance to impart our values to the rest of the world. There can be no better reason to vote against him." [My emphasis]

Now Hillary, as you know, promises to kiss Iran goodbye with a nuclear bomb if they cause trouble for Israel. Hillary also voted for the Kyl-Lieberman resolution, which declared the "Iranian Revolutionary Guards -- an official part of the Iranian armed forces -- as a 'terrorist organization.'" Not too much sanity there, either.

Where does Obama stand? He stands for a policy of engagement "because it's talk or fight." As Justin Raimondo said on AntiWar.com, Obama "clearly realizes waging perpetual war is hardly in our interests, even if we had the financial and military capacity to carry out such a crazed policy." Hopefully, we will hear soon what Obama thinks about this latest banging of the drums.


Again from Raimondo: "In a world where 'benevolent global hegemony" [hegemony refers to the dominance of one state over another] is the goal of America foreign policy, there is no right to self-defense; that, along with national sovereignty, has been abolished. Defiance is met with an implacable campaign for regime-change by the offending nation. By all indications, Iran is the next victim to be made an example of, sometime in mid-summer, or so the rumor goes."

That is one of the most accurate descriptions of Bush foreign policy I have seen thus far. Raimondo nails it! The U.S. is going to run the world its way! The nation that fails to live up to what the U.S. requires will suffer the consequences, even a nuclear strike!

There are numerous problems with this kind of foreign policy, but a major problem is that it is built on perpetual warfare! It ignores the lesson history has taught us over and over again and which we should have learned, but evidently have not: in a war, nobody wins!

Or, again from Paul Campos: "War is a form of mass psychosis, during which horrifying acts are transformed into heroic deeds, through the magical moral disinfectant of state sanction."

He is not saying that war is never justified, even given the truth of his statement. He is saying it is crazy and whether justified or not, is arguably the most devastating and terrible scourge on the face of the earth.


Don't listen to the liars. Don't listen to those rattling their sabers. Don't listen to their doomsday scenarios. There is no Rapture; there is no Armageddon. Jesus is not coming back.

The only possible result of war with Iran is hell on earth!